Barnes and Noble Drops Ebooks 411
computx writes "I just recieved an email from Barnes and Noble that they will no longer sell ebooks and I have 1 month to download the books I have purchased. Wow!"
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Barnes and Noble Drops Ebooks
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If all else fails, lower your standards.
Bathroom Reading (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
doesn't sound strange (Score:3, Insightful)
Considering all the file sharing on Kazaa, and other P2P programs, I for one am not surprised that BN would drop selling them. I wonder how much money is lost for eBook sharing? I also wonder if some 'coalition' (like the RIAA) is going to step in and scream 'No more downloads!' when it comes to eBooks.
Sad.. (Score:1, Insightful)
With close to zero demand compared to printed books it would have been stupid of them to continue.
eBooks... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd love nothing more than having all my college books in eBook format, and preferably for half the price... But it doesn't make sense to pay $300ish for a reader with fairly limited battery life and the pay prices for books which in my opinion are still unreasonable.
Inconvenient at best (Score:5, Insightful)
The DRM management in both the Microsoft and Adobe Readers made it so annoying that it took days for me to be able to read what I purchased. A combination of buggy software and lousy online support ended my enthusiasm. In the end, I decided to go back to good, old-fashioned books.
My Poor Eyes (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
Inflexibility (Score:3, Insightful)
Besides, i can just walk into the local B&N and sit and read half of any book before the store closes. :) Gotta love those comfy chairs.
Re:Bathroom Reading (Score:5, Insightful)
I think this is defniately the holdup for eBooks. Without a portable device, you are tied to a computer to read them, and even with them you are tied to battery life plus the possible eye strain associated with looking at a little screen to read.
I know some people that talk about the allure of paper, and the sentimentality they have for holding a book with paper, but personally if I could buy eBooks and download them into a nice sized reader that had acceptable battery life and a nice, easy to read screen, I'd prefer that. I'm guessing the device exists out there, I'm just not willing to pay a few hundred bucks for it yet.
Re:Is anyone really suprised? (Score:5, Insightful)
Until they get e-Paper its a dead deal anyways (Score:5, Insightful)
Some of the new OLED technology may make eBooks more practical for consumers, but right not they just aren't convenient enough and the eBook readers only add insult to injury as many consumers (myself included) just don't see the point in buying a device to read a book as opposed to just buying the paper book and not having to worry about charging it up before making a coast-to-coast flight.
evolution? (Score:2, Insightful)
Just wait (Score:4, Insightful)
I believe there are many reasons for this. A big one would be that most people do not enjoy staring at a computer monitor reading for long hours at a time. This can become very uncomfortable, especially for people who work on computers all day to begin with. I read three 300+ page novels (Star Wars fan fiction, the Snotzenexer Trilogy, awesome stuff, check 'em out) on a computer screen, and pretty much the only reason I did that was because I didn't really have the capability to print those pages.
anyway
Another big reason, is that most people don't seem to like the idea of paying for something that is just some digital document that just sits on your hard drive, and doesn't seem to be anything more than a typical word processing document.
Then there's just that psychological factor of books, turning pages, seeing the book on your shelf, being able to hold it in your hands. In this day and age, with so many people doing all kinds of work on computers, the idea of coming home and curling up with a cup of coffee in front of your computer monitor is a whole lot less appealing than in your bed with a book in your hands.
So while e-books have obviously failed this generation, I do not believe that publishers should totally give this idea up. They should wait for a little bit, and then push this idea on this new generation coming up. If they can get the kids to grow up with this concept, books will become far less prominent. ahem.. I shall leave now
Reading on LCD screens isn't quite there yet. (Score:2, Insightful)
I think the true killer to this product is that technology just isn't up to doing recreational printed material. The readable font-size and eye comfort factors are still inferior to good old ink on paper. And it will still be that way for a few generations of screens.
I say there won't be a comeback for a good 5-10 years.
Re:B & N and Computers/Technology (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Bathroom Reading (Score:5, Insightful)
E-Books aren't mature yet (Score:5, Insightful)
The eBook isn't dead - it's just immature. Anyone remember the Apple Newton? I don't mean to offend the legions of devotees that the machine apparently has, but the fact of the matter is that it was too young an idea to succeed, and we had to wait until US Robotics came out with the PalmPilot to see that kind of computer enter the mainstream. The same thing happened with Windows 1.0. I could go on and on. The problem with these kinds of things is that some solid ideas are lacking things - battery life, maybe, or size or reliability.
I think the same thing is happening with eBooks - they're too bulky, expensive, battery-hungry, difficult to read, and just generally inconvenient to read when compared with books. Not to mention that I don't like shelling out a few hundred dollars for a machine to read eBooks when I could use that money towards twenty or thirty paperbacks. And as many people have said, paper does have its charm.
I can see the convenience of eBooks, and it seems like some early adopters have, too. But they're just not ready for widespread adoption yet.
Still plenty available... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Bathroom Reading (Score:5, Insightful)
The "nice, easy to read screen" cannot be emphasized enough.
Most portable electronics have tiny screens with low resolutions, horrible DPI, and glare issues. And they suck down batteries.
Newspaper print is generally the worst in terms of DPI for printed material, and even it exceeds 2400 DPI. I distinctly recall talking to a friend of my father who was in the newspaper business. He was wondering when I thought traditional printed newspapers would be in significant danger from portable devices, home printing, etc. I, as a know-it-all geeky CS student, said it'd probably be about 10 years before the display technologies got there.
Well, it's roughly 10 years later and we're really no closer than we were. Printing has certainly improved, but not as dramatically as I expected. Display technologies have gone more or less nowhere -- LCD has come down in price and power consumption, but the resolutions haven't gone up dramatically and there's been no really new technologies in that time period. Sure, OLED and similar are on the horizon now, but they don't promise a solution to the resolution issues. Printed circuits, electronic paper, and other technologies are also closer, but still probably a decade or more away.
Paper is here to stay for quite some time.
Re:Bathroom Reading (Score:4, Insightful)
You could crank the brightness down on your monitor so bright white was closer to the ambient environment, but then everything else is too dark.
A piece of paper does fine since it only reflects the light available in the room, it doesn't create any additional light (obviously) and even absorbs a little bit of light.
We need displays that can match this much more closely, of course people have abandoned reflective displays on laptops. Since they are impossible to read in low-light, even if they are much easier to read in direct sunlight. This is pretty much the kind of display your palm uses. I don't think this OLED thing is going to fix anything either, maybe the electronic ink might be the future for reading a lot of text on a display.
When programing either do a fairly neutral gray on black. or a somewhat interesting color on a dark grey. The later seems to cause me fewer problems on my CRT. (my LCD's "black" is pretty bright still:)
The real reason ebooks are dying for some (Score:3, Insightful)
MS has jacked up DRM to the point that its nearly impossible to use an ebook if you arent willing to pirate it. Many book publishers havent figured out that if an ebook has 0 portability (another drm issue) or is only useful for a certain amount of time..its value is far less than that of even its paperback equivalent. Even $10 for a half meg text file is way too much IMHO. Amazon, Baen and Peanut have the right idea with many books priced at only 2-3 dollars. Even fictionwise is at least semi-reasonable but B&N has never seemed to get the idea.
As for convenience, e-books are much better suited to the palm or pocketpc than full size computers. I believe that in many instances e-book reading on a portable device is better than reading on paper. Note taking, highlighting and reviewing are much easier not to mention most devices remember where you left off if you have a tendancy to fall asleep reading.
There is a market for e-books, but much like the RIAA and the record companies, the publishers and sellers just have to get over the old model of doing business and accept the reality of the new market.
One thing I would like to see happen is maybe having publishers inlude a mini cd or secure url for an official digital version with the hardback editions. The costs would be minimal and it may do alot to generate awareness, they could even keep their DRM intact.
Re:E books??? Why (Score:5, Insightful)
Textbooks and refrence books were the killer-app for e-books. unfortunately the textbook and tech book makers are very against technology.
I would kill to be able to carry around my 30 some college refrence books easily in my pocket or in one book sized device. but it's impossible as the companies and people that write those books do not want them in any format but dead trees.
Re:eBooks... (Score:4, Insightful)
As to free software for reading, you've got your choice of Weasel Reader and Plucker. Both are quite easy to use, and come with tools to convert other formats into what they need to read them.
The only reason companies are finding eBooks unprofitable is they're discovering not too many people are interested in paying the same amount of money to buy an ebook (and not get the paperback) as they would to buy a paperback. Add to this that most of these nits are selling ebooks in proprietary protected formats that may or may not be readable in 5 years (paperbacks are certainly readable 5 years from now) and you have to wonder if these companies are beginning to make executive decisions based on the opinions of the interns from the "special" school.
Re:Bathroom Reading (Score:1, Insightful)
It has about a 6 hour run time at my preferred brightness (fairly high) and can be recharged easily and read while plugged in.
Gotchas: It is too expensive, could be easier to hold, and isn't easy (but is possible) to read in sunlight.
The real problem with e-books is encryption and proprietary file formats. The e-books from Baen are available in multiple formats and ARE NOT ENCRYPTED. Most publishers don't "get" electronic publishing. Normally, you have a file that can only be read with specific software (Reader, Acrobat, etc.) is set up so it can only be read on one or two devices, can not be externally referenced or indexed. And usually it costs more than a real book, not counting the hardware used to read it.
The whole point of e-books is flexibility - I should be able to read it on my PDA, laptop, new laptop, home computer, work computer at lunch, whatever. I should be able to index and search it. I should be able to keep it longer than my current computers.
Most publishers didn't get that. They aren't willing to change. The e-books aren't selling - surprise!
Can't find works in the Public Domain (Score:3, Insightful)
This is what the RIAA, SCO, and the like really fear, everything else is a sideshow. When people use open source software, public domain works, and entertain themselves online, as befits a free people.
What about a medium or genre that was created after the cut-off date for perpetual copyright (1923 in the USA)? Such mediums include sound films, and such genres include rock music.
What happens in several decades once Project Gutenberg has finally digitized all known public domain works?
Sonny Bono owns you.
pixel screens are not for books (Score:2, Insightful)
Depends (Score:3, Insightful)
The fact is you could spend your whole life reading public domain books.
Some people however, would rather read the new stuff that you can't get for free and are happy to pay for it. Apparently, not enough people fall into that category.
So yes, to some people, B&N dropping e-books DOES matter and Blackmask can't supply them with what they actually want.
You can always go through the digital black market to get what you'd normally have to pay for, for free.
Some people actually have morals, however and would rather not have something or get it in another form, rather than break the law.
Ben
Re:Off White (Score:3, Insightful)
Why not just turn down the color temperature on your monitor from 9300K to an easier-to-read 6500K? That's what those settings are for!